NY1: Lower Manhattan Subway Stop Fully Reopened

After 10 years, the Cortlandt Street subway station fully reopened Tuesday and southbound service on the N and R lines in Lower Manhattan has launched again.

The station, which is located across the street from the World Trade Center, was closed for one year after the September 11th attacks and shut again in August 2005 as part of construction of the $1.4 billion Fulton Street Transit hub.

Northbound service reopened in 2009.

"This station is so important to the residents here, the businesses, the tourists that use it every day," said MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder. "It's integral to the community that exists to the east and also to the new community that is growing to the west of the World Trade Center site."

"This week the world's eyes are on Lower Manhattan. We are opening the station within 10 years of the anniversary of the event. We have taken an appropriate moment, nationally and internationally to remember that horrible day," said Manhattan-Brooklyn Senator Daniel Squadron.

"I think it's great. I have been driving by this station closed for months now. It's terrific to see it open, it means the World Trade Center site is coming back," said a straphanger.

Eventually, the Cortlandt station will be connected to the Fulton Street transit center, PATH trains and ferry service through the new World Trade Center transit hub.

"That will be the Grand Central Station of Lower Manhattan, and it will connect this station through an underpass several blocks to 11 different subway lines," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

The Fulton Street Transit hub, which is going to cost about $1.4 billion and is mostly funded by the federal government, is set to open in 2014.

The Cortlandt Street station on the 1 line was destroyed in the September 11th terrorist attack.